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ACC Notes: Clemson moves on without WR Peake

Published: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at 07:04 PM.

CLEMSON, S.C. — Football teams would rather go without injuries, but when they happen they offer an opportunity to showcase depth.

Third-ranked Clemson will be without second-leading wide receiver Charone Peake after the junior tore his ACL during practice last week. The Tigers (2-0) will try to compensate heading into Thursday's 6:30 p.m. CDT clash with North Carolina State (2-0) in the Atlantic Coast Conference opener for both teams.

Junior Adam Humphries will step into the starting lineup. He hauled in 41 receptions last season as a starter and is third on the team with seven catches for 53 yards. Peake had eight grabs for 84 yards and a touchdown.

"I went to watch Charone Peake, and I couldn't take my eyes off Adam Humphries," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "It's a high level of basketball there at Dorman (in Spartanburg, S.C.) and he was the point guard - and was just running the show. And defensively, he was just a terror.

“That is when I said, 'We better take a closer look at this guy.' And we did. And (Dorman coach David) Gutshall was saying, 'The best football player on our team is this guy right here.' And boy, he is the epitome of a football player."

Swinney believes Humphries will have a long National Football League career if he were to stay healthy. This speaks to the talent on Clemson’s roster, which includes quarterback Tajh Boyd, who has 439 yards passing and has rushed for three scores, and Sammy Watkins, who averages 16 yards per catch. Swinney said freshmen Germone Hopper, Mike Williams and T.J. Green also will see more opportunities in Peake’s abcense.

“With the guys that we have at tight end or receiver we feel good about our ability to throw the football,” Swinney said.

CLEMSON, S.C. — Football teams would rather go without injuries, but when they happen they offer an opportunity to showcase depth.

Third-ranked Clemson will be without second-leading wide receiver Charone Peake after the junior tore his ACL during practice last week. The Tigers (2-0) will try to compensate heading into Thursday's 6:30 p.m. CDT clash with North Carolina State (2-0) in the Atlantic Coast Conference opener for both teams.

Junior Adam Humphries will step into the starting lineup. He hauled in 41 receptions last season as a starter and is third on the team with seven catches for 53 yards. Peake had eight grabs for 84 yards and a touchdown.

"I went to watch Charone Peake, and I couldn't take my eyes off Adam Humphries," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "It's a high level of basketball there at Dorman (in Spartanburg, S.C.) and he was the point guard - and was just running the show. And defensively, he was just a terror.

“That is when I said, 'We better take a closer look at this guy.' And we did. And (Dorman coach David) Gutshall was saying, 'The best football player on our team is this guy right here.' And boy, he is the epitome of a football player."

Swinney believes Humphries will have a long National Football League career if he were to stay healthy. This speaks to the talent on Clemson’s roster, which includes quarterback Tajh Boyd, who has 439 yards passing and has rushed for three scores, and Sammy Watkins, who averages 16 yards per catch. Swinney said freshmen Germone Hopper, Mike Williams and T.J. Green also will see more opportunities in Peake’s abcense.

“With the guys that we have at tight end or receiver we feel good about our ability to throw the football,” Swinney said.

Early dominance: Georgia Tech (2-0, 1-0) can take early control of the Coast Division with a victory over North Carolina (1-1) Saturday. The matchup is one of three ACC tilts in the week with the other pairing Pittsburgh (1-1, 0-1) and Duke (2-1, 0-1) in the quest for a first conference victory.

Georgia Tech advanced to the ACC Championship last season after North Carolina and Miami self-imposed postseason bans and opened the way for the Yellow Jackets. This is the second of three straight divisional games in a 12-day span with Georgia Tech opening the stretch with a 38-14 win over Duke last weekend. Georgia Tech also faces Virginia Tech Sept. 26.

“We are going to either dig ourselves quite a hole in September, or we are going to be in pretty good shape,” Johnson said. “That's just kind of the way it is. If we can have a good start, certainly it puts us in a good position, rather than trying to dig out of a hole like we were last year.”

Weekly honors: Florida State’s Jameis Winston earned his second rookie of the week nod and teammate Roberto Aguayo was the conference’s top specialist after the Seminoles’ 62-7 rout of Nevada. Winston was 15 of 18 for 214 yards and two touchdowns while completing his final 13 passes.

Aguayo kicked eight extra points and was perfect on two field goal attempts of 23 and 33 yards. He is the first FSU kicker to convert 17 consecutive kick attempts since Derek Schmidt set the school record of 29 in 1984.